From an article in The Wilson Quarterly, online here, comes this observation by Tyler Cowen:
“The measure of cultural literacy today is not whether you can ‘read’ all the symbols in a Rubens painting but whether you can operate an iPhone or other web-related technologies.”
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In recent days this blog has received a spate of comments from spammers fronting for online “pharmacies” (if you know what I mean). Each message begins by recounting a joke (to lower your defenses?). I thought one of the jokes was good enough to repeat here. It’s in the child-pleasing Q&A format and goes like this:
“Bubblewrap” is the name of an addictive game available as a free app down-loadable to the Apple iPhone. Video of how the 45-second game is played is available here.
I’m a fan.
During each game session a variety of sounds are heard. There’s a “pop” as each bubble is tapped; a sucking sound when a deflated bubble decides to pump itself back up with air; a “crash” sound when you pop a rare bubble whose destruction is worth two points (“2X”) (there are no labels so you never know when this will happen); a bigger explosion when an even rarer “5X” bubble meets its demise; a “ticking” reminiscent of the theme of the “60 Minutes” TV program that starts when five seconds of play are left in the game; and a raucous clown-horn blurt that signals the game is ended. All in all a cool sonic landscape. It keeps you coming back for more.
Also satisfying are the inadvertent rhythms that sometimes arise, especially when 2X and 5X bubbles explode in quick succession. Hearing a dah-dah-dah-DUH sequence toward the end of play is always welcome — it means your score just grew by 11 points and you may be fated to achieve a new high. The goal, of course, is to get an ever-higher score. (Isn’t that life-like?)
Speaking of life-like, playing Bubblewrap, like playing at a casino craps table or pulling a one-armed bandit, provides an opportunity to reflect on the fact that human psychology wants very much for non-living objects to be more like us. Especially is this so if we’re spending time interacting with a device in the hope of receiving something positive in return. (Are you listening, direction-giving lady navigator in my Prius?) If man is the measure of all things, wouldn’t it be nice if things really were more like us? I suspect this desire is innate, part of our DNA. If so, it suggests all human societies, however primitive, however temporarily misguided, will strive toward a Renaissance. And that’s a good thing, no?
[Aside: Waxing philosophical made me think of wax paper. Wax paper used to be a staple item in every home kitchen but now has disappeared. What happened? Is the answer as simple as two words, Saran Wrap? A name whose final word leads me back to the subject at hand . . . .]
A useful technique when playing Bubblewrap is to use a three-finger (index, middle, ring) approach, dancing the finger pads across the field of bubbles. After an initial sweep across the screen to pop all standing bubbles (which takes just a few seconds) you enter the re-inflation period when, one-by-one, each crumpled bubble does its Lazarus act. During this major phase of play I find it best to enter into an intuitive mode, a Zen-like state, floating over the bubble field, in tune with Wayne Gretzky’s advice to skate to where the puck (or the refurbished bubbles) will be.
Though not of “world leadership” rank, I’ve done pretty well so far, if I do say so myself. But have I hit a wall? —
Launched in the early 1970’s, the Pioneer 10 and 11 interplanetary probes are now traveling through interstellar space. Attached to each spacecraft is a durable gold anodized aluminum plaque designed by astronomer Carl Sagan. The plaques contain information designed to explain the origin and creators of the vehicles. Explain to whom, you ask? To alien civilizations out there somewhere. The markings that are sure to be most intriguing to them are line drawings depicting a pair of humans:
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I thought of that plaque recently when I started to come across earth-bound vehicles, usually minivans, sporting decals that show humans in stick-figure fashion. Here’s an example:
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Just as with Pioneer 10 and 11, these markings are intended to convey a basic message: “Behold the animating forces behind this vehicle.” But — fearful thought — what if these decals survive for millennia, long after we’re gone? Won’t these drawings confuse the hell out of alien archaeologists who come to study the earth? Will they think they’ve come upon a planet once dominated by creatures lacking fingers, toes, and noses? Where most inhabitants were fond of decorated discs, and a few others wore belts of tree mushroom fungi?
As for the here and now, you can find a lively discussion over at the Mother Proof blog, where blogger Emily Hansen’s post (“Banish Stick Figure Decals!”) inspired an 18-month-long trail of comments, pro and con. Anti-decal sentiment is strong. This fad may fade.
A couple of years ago, in a short review of a slim book of poetry, Eric McHenry made this observation:
“American poetry — according to one of the many competing caricatures — is dominated by English professors and the minor epiphanies they have while walking their dogs.”
Walking my dog this evening I came across a “growth” attached to the base of a 70-year-old oak tree. Its peach color made my golden retriever look dull in comparison (sorry, Jesse) and its hue intensified as blue evening descended. An example of the power of complementary colors, this was a minor epiphany to my non-professorial American eyes.
Many readers of fiction have an intense relationship with the authors they love. Eugenio Bolongaro describes this phenomenon as an “emotional closeness, a willingness to make oneself not only listen to the language of the author but also be hospitable to it.” In his 1947 book-length essay, What is Literature, Jean-Paul Sartre observed how reading involves “a pact of generosity between author and reader.”
On Saturday I visited the 2009 National Book Festival. This annual outdoor event is sponsored by the Library of Congress and is held on the grounds of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., a space sometimes referred to as “America’s front lawn.” It is a grand public platform for the display of emotional bonds between readers and authors.
Among the seventy or so writers signing books at this year’s Festival was the novelist John Irving. I brought with me a copy of the The World According to Garp — the very same copy I read in April, 1979, when the book first came out in paperback. Reading Garp back then struck me like a punch to the solar plexus. (My apologies to Irving acolytes for using a boxing simile when describing a book infused with the sport of wrestling.) Garp is one of the few novels I’ve read twice. John Irving is one of the few authors whose new books I eagerly await.
Hundreds of ardent readers were in line hoping for an audience, however brief, with the author. Aside from Garp, the book I spied most often in people’s hands was A Prayer for Owen Meany. I was struck by how worn (meaning, well-read) most of these books were. People were not here to get a valuable signature added to a mint condition book — something they could then sell on eBay. No, these readers had come with purer desires: to place a cherished object into the hands of its begetter; to ask for that object to be recognized and certified by its creator; and to retrieve the now-blessed book for renewed cherishing.
Author and reader are typically separated by time and space, but on this day those forces collapsed into a moment of connection.
As I joined the bright-faced, well-behaved crowd, I recalled a political opinion (this is Washington, D.C., after all) expressed by William F. Buckley, Jr., who said, “I am obliged to confess that I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.” What I was thinking was this: if I were allowed to introduce a third choice, I select a government led by National Book Festival attendees. Yes, that might make me one of the governors. (No system is flawless.)
The hour from noon until 1:00 was given over to John Irving’s book signing event. Time expired, leaving the back half of the line, me included, unrequited. But a few minutes before Irving departed (he kept at his task an extra 15 minutes) I was able to maneuver my way to a vantage point close to where he was greeting the last lucky cohort of book-clutching readers. Where I planted my feet turned out to be a charmed perspective from which to capture a remarkable sight. I had come to the Festival this day expecting to leave with an inked name on a yellowing page. What I brought back, instead, is a video record of the aftermath of those final moments of connection between author and reader.
Watch as each reader, spontaneously, in his or her own fashion, expresses joy:
“I understand that in a constitutional republic, people are afforded certain liberties to speak their minds. But we are also afforded, please let’s remember, the right to zip it. To keep a stiff upper lip. To grin and bear it. Because for the most part, our opinions are usually much more fascinating to us than to everyone else. Take it from a guy whose website address is his own name.”
(Tony Woodlief, in a September 16, 2009 blog post entitled, “The Emotive Impulse,” here.)
Each day on my way to and from work I pass through an urban university campus. This time of year brings a new crop of first year students moving into dorms and enjoying the fast approach of fall. In recent years I’ve noticed a halt in the growth of students, by which I mean their height. This September, on dorm move-in days, I saw several sets of parents who were discernibly taller than their matriculating offspring. What’s going on here? I found a possible answer in articles indicating Europeans are now taller than Americans. The reason, according to the authors (Europeans themselves) is America’s inferior health care system and our greater social/economic inequality. Studies are beginning to conclude Americans have long since stopped growing, and, by some measures, may actually be getting smaller.
2. Why does “Wednesday” have such a weird spelling?
I just set up an appointment for next Wednesday. I’ve always disliked that day, or, more precisely, the way “Wednesday” sounds to the ear and looks in print, because it obeys no rule of how pronunciation should relate to spelling. What accounts for its oddness? Someone posting a comment to the WordReference forum had this answer: “I would like to share a point that the modern spellings are derived from their ancient forms after a lot of phonological changes. According to the phonological phenomenon called “syncope”, we are bound to spell it as wenz-di. Please find more about these under the concepts of metaplasm. I hope this information proves useful to everyone.” So should we all start spelling it “wenzdi” (at least when texting)?
3. Is anybody else cringing as they watch that new iPod Nano “Jump” video?
Apple just introduced a new version of the iPod Nano that includes a video camera. One of the videos the company created to show off the feature is entitled “Jump,” available on the Apple website here and on CNN Video here (starting at 1:22). In a 15-second episode, three teenagers in swimsuits jump, upright, feet first, into the clear waters of a bay. My guess is this is somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, and I estimate the jump to be between 10 and 20 feet straight down. Visible beneath the water’s surface is an ominous clump of large rocks — a gathering of boulders lying in wait. Am I the only one watching and wondering how dangerous this exercise was to life and limb?
I became enamored of the poetry of Stephen Crane back in junior high school. Gnomic, ironic, and all too brief, Crane’s free verse has a special appeal to the adolescent sensibility. Here’s a poem I memorized:
I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
“It is futile,” I said,
“You can never — “
“You lie,” he cried,
And ran on.
As a teenager I sympathized with that small man pursuing the horizon. All honor was due to Sisyphus and his lesser brethren. Decades later I’m inclined to see the fellow as mad, a denier of fact, a fool.
I was reminded of this today when reading a provocative post on The Daily Dish, written by guest-blogger Jim Manzi. His essay (yes, the post is substantial enough to deserve that label) is entitled “The Socialism Implicit in the Social Cost of Carbon.” Manzi argues, convincingly I think, that calculating a social cost of burning carbon — toting up its heavy negative externalities — is a fool’s errand. It represents a blinkered approach to the goal of optimizing human welfare over the long term. There is every reason to believe we will misquantify the costs, and no reason to believe the costs of this one activity are more egregious than those of any other social activity pursued in our interconnected world. Man-made climate change is real, yet the seeds of Armageddon are hidden in a myriad of human actions (our pride and prejudice was clear before it went nuclear). Somehow the role of global bad guy, most horrible among horribles, has been dealt exclusively to carbon, forgiving other worthy applicants. We unthinkingly set about pursuing curtailment of fossil fuel burning, even when curtailment efforts may harm us more than the harm of inaction.
Manzi refers to our current fixation on carbon’s cost as chasing an endlessly receding horizon of zero risk.
Among the roster of free music apps available for download to iPhone is a rudimentary matrix sequencer called “TonePad.”
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As described at http://www.tonepadapp.com/, this plaything is quite user friendly: “Create songs by simply touching the screen and seeing notes light up.” (This reminds me of what Stanley K. said about a different pleasure: “Having them colored lights going.”) TonePad allows you to create a short (about 4-second) snippet of music that repeats hypnotically. You can then build upon it with new tones and rhythms, mimicking the accretive style of composers Steve Reich and Philip Glass. After some practice, what’s you’ve mastered is a kind of dime-store minimalism, except you don’t need to cough up even ten cents. Since I needed music for the soundtrack to my second iMovie, I decided to give TonePad a try. The result, available on YouTube and Vimeo:
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